Yet more holiday fun

This afternoon we went to the Forum Cinema in Hexham. This is our small, but perfectly formed, independent cinema. My blip may make you think that we went to see Paddington 2, but we have seen that already.

The cinema staff were racing around trying to prepare the auditorium. The Star Wars audience had managed to spill an extraordinary amount of popcorn!! (They had emptied the popcorn machines, but I don't think our audience would have wanted to buy any. It would have been much too noisy!)

We were there for the live streaming of the Berlin Philharmonic's New Year Concert conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. It was his last New Year Concert with the orchestra.

It was a sell-out in Hexham, as I suspect it was in Berlin.

We loved the programme Simon Rattle had chosen. It included works by Dvorak, Stravinsky, Berstein and Richard Strauss. The Strauss Orchestral Songs, performed by Joyce DiDonato, were the highlight for me. What a glorious voice. I also enjoyed the interview she gave which was transmitted before the concert. She has been working with both refugees and prisoners on a regular basis.

I found this quote from a speech she made at the Julliard School a few years ago:
“The world needs you. Now, the world may not exactly realize it, but wow, does it need you. It is yearning, starving, dying for you and your healing offer of service through your Art. We need you to help us understand that which is bigger than ourselves, so that we can stop feeling so small, so isolated, so helpless that, in our fear, we stop contributing that which is unique to us: that distinct, rare, individual quality which the world is desperately crying out for and eagerly awaiting. We need you to remind us what unbridled, unfiltered, childlike exuberance feels like, so we remember, without apology or disclaimer, to laugh, to play, to FLY and to stop taking EVERYTHING so damn seriously.”

That gives us food for thought.

The Berlin audience did a lot of coughing between movements which seemed to affect out audience after a while!

We are home and warm and ready for a quiet New Year's Eve. I will wish you Happy New Year tomorrow!